Today's Windows Update Finally Lets You Put Off Future Updates

It doesn’t matter if you’re pumped for Creators Update, the new version of Windows 10 that makes drawing all over you screen easier. Whether you like it or not, your Windows 10 device will be getting it, starting today with a slow rollout (and starting April 25th on phones). If you’re a part of Microsoft’s Insiders Programme—a beta-like programe that gives you builds of Windows 10 early—then you’ll already be on Creators Update. For the rest of us it will come, like a little surprise, over the coming months.

And make no mistake, like death, Creators Update comes for us all. Every single Windows 10 machine will eventually be forcibly updated to Creators Update. But with that forced update comes something amazing: the ability to postpone all future updates. Well, for a time, anyway.

Microsoft instituted forced updates in Windows 10 computers for security reasons. Windows is just behind Android as the most used operating system in the world, and a lot of it’s users don’t understand, or care, about things like upgrading their computers to kill glaring security flaws. Forcing the update keeps the ignorant safe, while also protecting others from their possibly bot-infested porn machines.

But for many computer users stability is just as important as security, and Windows’ forced updates had a history of screwing up big projects and leaving savvier users annoyed.

Why thank you, Windows Update. How did you know I wanted you to close all my programs and reboot my laptop while I was away?

Now, once Creators Update is live, You can go to Settings on your device, then Update & security, then Advanced options under Update Settings. Clicking the button under Pause Updates will pause any updates for 7 days. That’s not the indefinite pause many of us would like, but at least it gives you back a modicum of control so you don’t have to worry about updates inexplicably happening when you’re processing video or crunching code or up at three in the morning try to finish a paper for school.